The present invention relates to a bending machine for bending wire-like material, such as pipes, rods, or section members, comprising a machine bed supporting a carriage, having a gripper for controllably turning and translating a workpiece, and a bending head.
As is known, wire-like material, for example pipes for carrying fluids, vapors or gases to system devices, has sometimes a very complex configuration.
Such a complex configuration is required for fitting the wire-like material to the communicating path arrangements communicating the devices to be connected.
This wire-like material is preliminarily made in the form of rods or pipes, either of straight configuration or wound into coils.
These rods or coils are cut in portions having a desired length and then are bent by suitably designed bending machine.
Known bending machines comprise a machine bed supporting, on a plate, a carriage including a gripper and a slide having a bending head.
The gripper is so designed as to grip the rod or pipe length and to displace and turn this length along the axis thereof.
The slide is so coupled to the machine bed that it is possible to adjust the position of said slide transversal of the gripper by small rectilinear displacements.
This prior bending machine allows to align a die, provided on the bending head, with the axis of the rod or pipe length, in order to engage this length in the die for bending it.
The provision of a device for driving the slide transversely of the gripper greatly increases the size of these prior bending machines laterally of the gripper.
Such an enlarged size of the bending machine limits the desired spatial extensions of the lengths to be bent. This large size, moreover, increases the machining time, since the workpiece, during the machining thereof, must be re-oriented in order to prevent the workpiece from colliding against portions of the bending machine, during the bending operation.
At present, the mentioned bending machines are also associated with handling devices, such as handling robots, in order to automatically supply and unload the workpiece, or transfer it to other machining units.
The control, i.e. the programming, of the mentioned handling units, is very difficult.
Such a handling and, in particular, an accurate handling of the workpiece, on the other hand, is necessary as a great processing or machining speed is desired.
Moreover, the bent length must not disorderly fall to the bottom of the bending machine, as it is disengaged from the bending arm. In particular, the machined workpiece must not fall onto components of said machine thereby preventing subsequent machining operations, or it must not be affected, upon falling, by unknown deformations susceptible to spoil the proper quality of the product.
Furthermore, the provision of a handling unit for automatizing the workpiece loading and unloading operations, makes the use of the bending machine much more difficult and expensive, as the bending machine pertains to an automatic making line, in which other machining operations are also performed, such as butting, marking, threading, drilling operations, as well as in which coupling nut engaging stations are furthermore provided.